Stitched
by Ecatar
Summary: Haise Sasaki is an editor, and he's made an appointment with a rather terrifyingly ambitious writer named Touka Kirishima. Perhaps the older we get, the less we understand about ourselves and the more about others, the better. Will be short. Or, rather short. AU. Touken. Or not.
1. Chapter 1

Stitched.

Little bits of brown, little bits of black, and littler bits of blue nail polish stuck to the rusty peeling parts of her underfoot, and she laughed.

She hadn't worn any polish on her toes for weeks, maybe months, and her fingertips were chipped sharpie jobs that used to be cute bunny designs.

Well, sort of cute; they were missing an ear or two, though.

They should have had a third ear.

The door locked behind her and flip flops clapped with her building's floor in triumph. She was leaving comet tails of brown, blue and black matter across apartment floor galaxies.

She used to miss the black boot, purple tights days, she really did. But when the cold wind of Japanese outer space licked the skin of her legs, she realized just how much she'd missed out. The world was free, open.

When a passing little girl's pointed nail tickled that same skin, she snapped back into reality.

Marching back in for tights was sensible, and she was a sensible girl.

Haise did handstands up the avenue in the brown, blue and black universal street streams, all the people around him like burgeoning planets coming into being. He felt like the sun.

He cracked his back and the universe contracted.

The doors shut behind him, and he hunched his way over to the elevator.

He reached the top of the stairs, a caution tape medallion around his neck, king of his castle. The walk over to his office chair was rather slow, and it seemed publishing department carpets weren't magical like broken cement handstand strides on streets.

The sweat from his back stuck like skin to the leather of his chair with his shirt wrapped around his neck private jet style He felt rather 55ish in his 27-year-old frame.

His forearm was stuck to the file he brought in for that day, and when he tried to, well, unstick it, he smeared the inked name that ran across the top of the vanilla.

The time was pretty clear in his mind, though: 11:30. He still had an hour to go.

So he leaned back, and stretched the bone of his chest as his arms gripped the metal of his throne, before the door cracked open.

"There's a, um, Touka Kirishima, here to see you sir?"

 _Off, off and away, of course_.

AN: **Hey there again guys, it's been a while, hasn't it? I've put off Detective Ghoul for a while, because I don't feel I was doing it justice with the last few chapters. Perhaps it will get a reboot? Anyway, I've published this small glimpse of something I'll be working on over the next few weeks to hopefully get myself going again, and to show you I'm alive! Anyway, I hope it goes well, and it'll be super short, so stay tuned!**


	2. A Conversation Takes Place

A Conversation Takes Place.

 **Haise.**

 _I suppose you're here for your novel then, right?_

 _No shit._

 _What's your favorite novel? Do you like short stories?_

 _I'm not going out with you._

 _Okay._

How many conversations could a person have in their own head before the replies stop coming?

 **Touka.**

 _So, I guess you're here to read my novel then, huh?_

 _If you'd call this a novel._

 _So um, what kinds of things are you reading these days? Cause I'm really…_

 _I'm not going out with you._

 _Okay._

She continued having conversations in her head. They were good, because none of them ever really amounted to much of anything at all.

Maybe literal gears would crank when she sat down.

"So I suppose you're here for your novel then, right?"

Holy shit.

"I'm not sure I'd call it much of…

"You know I was on the street this morning, and it felt like I was doing handstands on the cracks of our galaxy."

Touka's right finger rubbed the wood on her editor's desk, but her eyes stayed fixed, or perhaps transfixed, on the little bits of water percolating on Haise's upper lip. They didn't look like sweat, and the air didn't feel sweaty; she felt like she was taking a bath, rather.

Touka knew only two people who could speak like a song, more accurately, who she could hear like a song. The song wasn't always good, actually. But, she preferred listening to a rather soft, shitty acoustic session at a coffee shop to hearing nothing at all. Both of those people were right in front of her.

Maybe she was going deaf, though. Haise could have been in a rock band. American rock.

"And I think, I'd like your novel, well, I think I'd like to be a bit more about doing handstands on galaxies. Obviously it's your work,"

"What the fuck does that mean?"

She never did like taking baths.

 _Please stay calm please stay calm._

"Right, well, I suppose what I'm saying doesn't make very much of any sense at all, does it?"

"Nope."

"I think, what I'm saying is, I think you can make rather sad places feel like wonderful things, or rather, maybe you can show a reader that there is innate sadness in a galaxy."

"You're saying I'm full of shit?"

"Well, I don't think so. But, if I am, it's good shit."

"So, why'd you let me write this whole thing if you just want me to rewrite it?"

"I don't want you to rewrite it. I think you should keep your imagination in mind when we go over the editing."

He didn't look at her when he said that, and it felt like the word imagination was a dangerous trigger for him. He looked old, in a bad way sure, but in a fitting way, like his fucking ancient soul had a friend to have some conversation with, finally.

She wanted to give his back a good crack.

"I can deal with that, I think."

"You know, I'm excited to read this again though. I'm curious how much my friend has changed again."

"Your friend?"

"The sailor! I feel like if I ever wanted to have a friend again, it'd be someone like him."

"God damn that was dark."

"I didn't mean it like that, but, I'd rather not say it any other way. I feel I've been lost at sea without him, and I've sworn off every coastguard ship and random passerby until I find him again. And if I can just…"

"Okay shut the fuck up and take the book."

How often did authors ask their editors for meetings? She didn't think that was such a regular thing.

Or, was it an oddly regular thing?

"I think, it's rather cool you asked me for a meeting. How about we go get coffee downstairs? That is, if you drink coffee."

Coffee was a strong thing, surprisingly strong.

"Sure."

She saw people walk by on their way down, and she thought about how great it would be if everyone were full of either one word, or a rather long song lyric.

 **Haise.**

There was a great celebration going on inside Haise's soul. Not in his head, though, because, "gatherings," up there could become quite frightening.

His back and all around crotchety personality aside, Haise was starting to become grateful for his age, largely because a younger version of himself probably wouldn't have gotten this far. How often do dates happen at cafes, anyway?

Well, "date," was a rather broad term, wasn't it?

When they came to their table, just as a young waitress started towards them, Touka got up and left him without much warning.

"Where are you going?"

A simple wave satisfied her personal responsibility.

It worked for him, he supposed. Well, he accepted.

"What would you like today sir?"

"I suppose I'll have the usual-"

"I've never served you sir,"

"Yes, I suppose that's true. I mean, I'll just wait until she comes back."

She left, with a simple wave and no words.

When Haise opened his client's, or rather his date's, or rather, his client's novel, little bits of black, blue and brown nail polish cracked off the cover. He spent a few seconds back on his street stroll through the galactic nebulous, and then moved on, not to the words, but the cleanliness of the pages themselves.

They were pure, so pure in fact that it was hard to believe that they'd ever been cut in the first place. It was like he was in some forest on the other side of the planet, reading a story carved into bark.

"Well I suppose I'm not such a terrible editor then."

He remembered meeting Touka then, a year earlier, at a bookstore a few streets down.

 _What was she reading?_


End file.
